The role of group wizards while levelling up

[Jimjam]

Am I being a dick if I think a group wizard's job is to root and stun rather than limply attempt to dps with their ticklenukes?

Does this ever change, or are they stuck being a second rate enchanter, helping warriors keep aggro and interrupting the spells of enemy casters with the occasional burn? If it does change, what level does that occur?

[bloodmuffin]

They will always be more effective soloing.

I leveled my wizard solo/grouping from 1-52ish. From 10-30 I spent the majority of my times in groups. My initial job is to just Root CC and finish off a mob so people don't have to snare/chase the mobs.

With Breeze or mana song you should have enough to root/nuke each mob. The downside is resists, you can get super unlucky and have just about every spell resisted on a even/yellow con in the early levels which dumps your manapool leaving you pretty useless. If I get resisted I usually give it another shot then give up and med that back until the next mob comes.

This will remain the same forever. You'll root CC only when needed, wait for the tank to establish agro, the dps put in some work, and then nuke out the final HP preventing running mobs. Occasional stuns for healing/wiz merbs.

[ridiculousmoose]

Thing is most 'group' wizards just do the lame one nuke per mob shit... makes it easier for them to get back to their tv show while getting free xp.

[Ivory]

A good player uses all of their classes abilities.

Paladins should root / heal to control mobs.

Rangers should snare / root / heal.

SKs should have their pets up for extra dps and snare.

So many people just sit down and don't use their full class (like all of the clerics that just sit around...most don't even know they have a lull AND mem blur spell!!).

[Gvelz Underfoot]

Originally Posted by ridiculousmoose [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Thing is most 'group' wizards just do the lame one nuke per mob shit... makes it easier for them to get back to their tv show while getting free xp.

1 nuke per mob is fine if conserving mana for a boss / healer / nuker mob or in case of evac needed. Furthermore I recall mana regen / mana pool being a bit more difficult in early grouping and sometimes 1 nuke is all there is mana for due to chain pulling. If the wizard is low on mana no one really cares, so we have to wait until the cleric is low for a group to take a short break.

If someone in the group is snaring, and the mob is gonna get 1 nuke, do it so that the mob goes into "flee" mode faster which a) allows the full damage of the nuke to impact the target and b) the melee can finish it off without getting beat on. Waiting until the mob is already in flee mode is typically a waste of mana, especially of it only takes half the nuke to finish it off. The only exceptions are if there is no snare possible, and it's gonna run and agro other stuff.

A good wizard will know when to nuke once, and when to dump nukes at a target. Especially once we have concussion and can tightly control our aggro. Stunning and rooting are great to have but very situational at higher levels, since 2 or 3 hits from a mob will wreck a wizard making the healers job more difficult. I only attempt to stun if the mob is tough and has a Complete Heal, and I only root if the chanter or bard is AFK or dead.

One problem is that many of our stuns and interrupts have a greater chance of getting resisted, resulting in a waste of mana. Another problem is that the casting time on the stun and interrupt spells make it tricky. Thunderstrike at level 29 has a 3.6 second cast time, for example, and Force Strike with a whopping 5.5 second timer. Attempting to time that so that it interrupts a heal is tenuous at best and even if timed right some other class could end up getting it interrupted wasting mana that could have been used for a straight and lower agro nuke. And on top of all of this, the recast timer for these spells is fairly long, anywhere from 12 to 24 seconds for many of our nukes with interrupt / Tishan's & Markar's lineup. So potentially would need 2 spell slots to effectively keep a caster interrupted. Again, great to have but only if there's no one else in the party that can perform these tasks.

[Decad]

Root Snare stun is a wizard job in a group and this is more important then DPS.

[elwing]

Originally Posted by Ivory [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

A good player uses all of their classes abilities.

Paladins should root / heal to control mobs.

Rangers should snare / root / heal.

SKs should have their pets up for extra dps and snare.

So many people just sit down and don't use their full class (like all of the clerics that just sit around...most don't even know they have a lull AND mem blur spell!!).

The worst I have seen was a bard refusing to twist...

[MavstabYoudead]

Group roles are not static. They change depending on the group composition, so no your assumption may not always be correct.

I've never heard wizards regarded as 2nd rate enchanters. They are the top rate burst DPS class, depending on resistance of mobs.

[Zill]

When I played my wizard in groups I'd usually throw 2 nukes at each mob, which would take close to 40% of their health away while my group finished up. I'd also throw out roots for add management.

Sometimes if we got a lower levelled add I'd just root that sucker and burn it down real quick while everyone else focused on the bigger pull.

Wizards in groups are really damn useful. There are some levels where the mobs HP outscales the nukes we have access to, but past like 34 that's not really an issue.

[Rararboker]

Wizards get more useful when evacing out of dangerous situations becomes more important. Like some end game dungeons.